[2] Sometime after April 1862, people who were drafted and didn't want to fight for the Confederate Army during the Civil War hid in the Big Thicket and became known as Jayhawkers.
It wouldn't be long till the men who had money to start a business of any kind would buy slaves for his labor and poor whites would be left out.
[2] They would live off of the land's wild fruit and often salvaged corn sacks from timber camps for clothing.
[5][6] Due to the numerous beehives near Honey Island, a vast concentration of these Jayhawkers formed a camp nearby.
[5] In the spring of 1865, a Confederate captain named Charlie Bullock captured some of these refugees and locked them up in a wooden shack near Woodville, but they managed to escape.
[2] Shortly after the escape, Confederate Captain James Kaiser set fire to the canebrake region near Honey Island to flush the Jayhawkers out.